


If We Have That in Common

by lady_ragnell



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:58:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/pseuds/lady_ragnell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uther lends Morgana an umbrella, and later she gives it back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If We Have That in Common

**Author's Note:**

> As this was written before episode 3x05, Uther and Morgana are not related.
> 
> Written for [this prompt](http://kinkme-merlin.livejournal.com/16289.html?thread=14307745#t14307745) at kinkme_merlin. Title from "Small Umbrella in the Rain" from Little Women: the Musical.

The only reason it happens is because Uther chose his least favorite umbrella before going out that morning. He has three, and as he’s walking to work when London seems to be made of mud this week, he thought it wise to pick the one in a horrendous shade of orange that he was given in a gift bag at a business conference.

He’s running later than he likes, especially when Bayard from Mercia is supposed to be in his office at nine and he wishes to prepare, but there’s no helping that, so he just walks a bit faster than normal to make up the time.

“Oh, damn!” someone exclaims from up ahead of him, and Uther is startled out of going over his plans for the meeting to find a young woman holding a newspaper over her head to keep out the steady, miserable downpour with the heel of her shoe caught in a crack in the sidewalk. She’s dark-haired and impeccably dressed, like a hundred other women on their way to work, but there’s something in the anger in her face that catches his attention. When she glances up and catches him looking, she glares and addresses him. “You could help instead of standing there smirking.”

Uther is quite certain that nobody’s spoken to him like that in years, not even his son, and Arthur can be outspoken when he wants to. Still, now that she’s singled him out, he’s unwilling to leave until he’s helped her, so he strides forward and holds the umbrella over her head. “I wasn’t smirking,” he feels compelled to say. “I was simply waiting to see if your shoe would come free on its own.”

She smiles, glare melting away as she bends to pull at her shoe, hair tumbling over her shoulder and almost sweeping the filthy pavement. “Gwen always said my shoes would get me in trouble one day. It only figures that it would happen in the rain when I’m supposed to be at an interview in twenty minutes.”

“Here, you hold the umbrella, you’re at the wrong angle.” She straightens up, eyebrows raised in a way that reminds him inexplicably of his old friend Gaius, though she’s probably Arthur’s age, and takes the umbrella. Uther crouches and takes hold of her ankle, struck by a memory of he and Ygraine stumbling down cobbled streets in Italy on their honeymoon and how she’d broken a heel and walked back to their hotel barefoot and laughing. “I’m afraid this will go much easier if your foot is not actually in the shoe,” he says after a second.

“Well, I’m not about to get ladders,” she says from above him, collected and amused, and slips her foot out of the shoe before putting it on his knee. “Does that help?”

In answer, Uther tugs the shoe out of the crack easily, and she puts it back on. He straightens, miraculously without touching the muddy street, and finds her holding the umbrella out to him. “Keep it. I have more at home, and you need it more,” he says. “Can’t have you applying for a job looking like you’ve been swimming.”

She stares at him for a moment before grinning, sudden and sharp. “No, not that kind of interview. One for a magazine article I’m co-writing.”

Uther reminds himself that not all journalists are like the ones who harassed him after Ygraine’s death, and gives her a nod. “Good luck. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m running late myself.”

“Thank you,” she calls after him, and he raises a hand in acknowledgment before breaking into a faster walk, later now than he was before.  
*  
That Sunday is the first time his family has had Sunday dinner anywhere but at his house in at least three years, but Arthur’s ... partner insisted on cooking, so Uther finds himself cutting through a park on his way home when the heavens open and it starts pouring, despite the sun that still peeks from behind the clouds at regular intervals.

Uther breaks into a jog, though he knows it won’t keep him any drier, but a minute later there are running steps behind him and someone takes his elbow as the rain stops landing on him. He spins to find the woman from the other morning, his umbrella in her hand, smiling up at him. “Look like it’s my turn to rescue you. I’ve been wondering if I would run into you.”

“What are you doing out with an umbrella? It was sunny until five minutes ago.”

She smiles up at him and holds out the umbrella until they’re both barely under it. “It just felt like rain when I went out. I like to be prepared.” She glances around. “You don’t look the sort to be in this part of the city.”

“I was visiting my son.”

She starts walking forward, and he follows, since she’s going in the same direction he was heading. “How old is your son?”

Uther takes a moment to realize what she thinks is going on, and then he can’t help a laugh. “He’s twenty-four next month,” he says.

She starts laughing too, only to sober and give him a speculative look a moment later. “You don’t look old enough to have a son that age, and I’m not just flattering you.”

“We were young when we had him,” he says, and for the first time in a long time he doesn’t mind speaking of Ygraine.

“Your wife couldn’t make it to visit?”

Uther is anything but a fool, and he knows what that question means. He should tell this girl that he has no interest in anyone, let along girls barely older than his son. “My wife,” he says as flatly as he can manage, “is dead.”

“Oh,” she breathes, and gives him a searching look. “I wouldn’t have pried if I’d known.”

Normally he would take that as his due and leave her to finish her walk, rain or no, but instead he gives her a curt nod and says something that would surprise anyone who knows him: “It was a long time ago.”

She lets the silence stretch out as they walk. “I’m Morgana,” she offers at last.

“Uther Pendragon.”

They walk together for quite some time, since he’d been expecting a sunny afternoon and never takes the Tube if he can help it and she shows no signs of wanting to go inside, and he learns that she’s a journalist with a scientific magazine, a transplant from Dublin, and sharp as a tack. He finds himself talking about his office, Arthur, and other things he’s barely mentioned to anyone in quite some time, and doesn’t even realize when they stop outside an old brick building because he’s too busy laughing over a story she’s telling about her nephew. “This is my place, I’m afraid,” she says at last. “You should have your umbrella back for the rest of the walk home.”

“Thank you, Morgana. This has been very enjoyable.”

Her smile is enigmatic. “Perhaps we’ll run into one another again soon.”  
*  
The next day at work Uther receives a message from an e-mail address he doesn’t recognize and finds that Morgana has e-mailed him telling him she’s interviewing a politician he mentioned being acquainted with and asking for advice on dealing with him. He sends a quick message back, and as the weeks pass, finds himself e-mailing Morgana several times a day, usually about business, though other things slip in around the edges: she discusses her worries about her nephew Mordred not getting along with children at school, and he despairs over Arthur’s insistence that he’ll be marrying this Merlin of his.

After almost a month and two meetings over coffee, it feels natural that when Uther receives an invitation for a scientific award ceremony and banquet that he invite Morgana instead of Catrina, who’s been his “plus one” for years.

Of course it’s raining when Uther leaves for the benefit, and on a whim he grabs the orange umbrella instead of one of the ones he actually likes before getting into the car he ordered for the occasion and giving the driver Morgana’s address. He meets her at her door with the umbrella and she gifts him with a blinding smile in an ivory gown that reminds him disconcertingly of an old dress of Ygraine’s. It bothers him less than it would with anyone else, though, because Morgana, young and sharp and cool, never once reminds him of Ygraine and her warm sweetness. She’s always herself.

Morgana charms everyone at the banquet, collecting business cards with terrifying efficiency from his allies and enemies equally and producing a notebook from her purse when she meets one of the scientists who can give a statement on carbon emissions, her latest article subject. “New protege, Uther?” asks Alined, an old business associate, later that night. “She doesn’t seem like one of your usual junior partners.”

“No, she doesn’t work for me,” says Uther, and he doesn’t miss Alined’s sudden leer. He tries to come up with an easy dismissal for Morgana--he’s helping her career, he owes her a favor, she’s a friend of Arthur’s--but the moment passes and he realizes, a bit shaken, that there _is_ no easy dismissal for her.

Arthur calls the next morning. “You’re in the papers, Father. It’s been years since the last time that happened. Who’s this Morgana the columns say you’re dating?”

His son is the last person Uther wants to explain this to. “Morgana is a lovely young woman, but I am not dating her. She’s only a few years older than you are, Arthur, and I simply find her better company than Catrina at that sort of event.”

“Well, I always said Catrina’s a troll.” Arthur still sounds uncertain, but Uther firmly changes the subject and he doesn’t bring it back.  
*  
Morgana kisses him on a wet autumn afternoon, after she’s become his plus-one to everything and the papers have lost interest in printing pictures of them together and speculating on their relationship, under the orange umbrella again, right as he’s expounding on the idiocy of his personal assistant. “There,” she says after the cool press of lips, while he’s still processing the situation. “I’ve been wanting to do that for months now.”

“Morgana,” he says as seriously as he can, “I’m old enough to be your father.”

She rolls her eyes. “But you aren’t. If I cared, I wouldn’t be here right now. And you’re interested, Uther. You’ve made that clear enough.”

Uther opens his mouth to object; he hasn’t had a relationship since Ygraine, not for lack of trying on women in his office and social circle. The closest he got was Catrina and her convenient presence at events where he needed someone on his arm. Then he shuts his mouth as he realizes that perhaps this might work because he _doesn’t_ compare her to Ygraine. They have little in common, and that’s as it should be. “Arthur isn’t going to be happy,” he says, and can’t help but smile as he imagines his son’s reaction to the whole situation.

Morgana looks at him for a second before bursting out laughing, free and clear enough to make a few people turn around and look at them. “Well,” she says after a moment, “at least I’ll be revenge for his Merlin, won’t I? Maybe if you promise to stop threatening to have Merlin financially blacklisted he won’t call me a gold-digger behind my back.”

Uther is silent for a surprised moment while she starts laughing again, and then he can’t help but join her, standing under an umbrella he would hate if it weren’t for the fact that he met her under it, at the start of something new for the first time in a long time.


End file.
